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Teesside has one of the highest concentrations of industry in the UK. Located close to North Sea carbon storage sites, a carbon capture and storage (CCS) network has the potential there to be as significant as offshore wind and new nuclear power and accelerate the UK's journey towards a competitive, low carbon economy.

CCS is no longer primarily a technical challenge, it is now a commercial challenge. Implementing a CCS network in Tees Valley – which Teesside Collective's work has shown is technically viable – would represent the UK's first commercial scale CCS project and establish Tees Valley as a pioneer of industrial development.

Teesside Collective is a ready-made, cost-effective opportunity for the UK to start removing carbon dioxide emissions from its vital process and chemical industries.

Teesside Collective is a cluster of leading energy-intensive companies working together to build one of Europe's first CCS equipped industrial zones and has the potential to help to retain the UK's industrial base, attract new investment and jobs and meet the UK's climate change targets.

Many industrial plants produce CO2 through their process, which is separate to emissions from sources of energy. CO2 is produced from the chemical reactions needed to make the product and the quantity is therefore unaffected by energy efficiencymeasures.

Taking carbon dioxide from the fluegas before it is released into the atmosphere is the only option to decarbonise as there are no viable alternative chemical reactions for these production processes.

Home to nearly 60% of the UK's energy-intensive industry, Teesside in Tees Valley is the ideal location to develop the first CCS network in the UK. Being the most integrated industrial cluster in the UK creates economies of scale that will minimise the cost of CCS.

In two instances in Tees Valley chemical plants produce pure CO2 as a by-product, some of this is already captured and transported for use in industries such as food and drink. The area is located on the coastline, with close proximity to storage sites in the North Sea.

Supportive infrastructure and skills are already in place in Teesside and government-funded work has proved Teesside Collective is technically viable and cost effective. Last but not least, local industry is already on board.

An economic impact assessment of industrial CCS in Teesside. It would create 1,200 jobs during the construction phase and help create and retain 5,900 jobs while in operation.

The Teesside Collective can act as the template for similar networks in other UKregions. There are also good expansion options within the region as it is an ideal location for powerplants and hydrogen production technologies.

CCS is technologically proven at a commercial scale on industrial plants around the world. Its main challenge is financing.

Government needs decarbonisation from the UK's industrial base. In order for CCS to progress to a commercial scale it needs financial support from government.

There is an established precedent for government to support the technological progression and cost reduction of low carbon technologies through deployment, as the example of the UK offshore wind industry shows.

There are many hurdles that would prevent industries in the region from financing industrial CCS entirely on their own at this stage. Commodity industries are lean companies with low margins. There is no financial driver for private investment in CCS and more significantly there is an economic risk of increasing their UKcost base.

Transport and storage operation and liabilities are also outside the industrial remit and government's support is needed to ensure access to a suitable store secured in the North Sea.

The Energy Technologies Institute (ETI), a public-private partnership between government and major industry, completed an assessment of UK offshore CO2 storage and concluded that there was enough CO2 storage for over 50 years even from the limited stores that have been appraised.

Creating additional pressure is the timing of CCS. The UK needs to start deployment now to realise the full benefits of industrial CCS. The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) believes Industrial CCS will be needed from the mid-2020s onward if the UK is to stay on track for its 2050 emission reduction goals, a message which was reiterated in its June 2017 report to Parliament on meeting carbonbudgets.

For this to be achieved, the CCC recommended that contracts be awarded by 2020. Further to this domestic pressure there are international considerations, including the possibility that the UK will lose inward investment to other EU countries.

Norway is pushing ahead with CCS front end engineering and design (FEED) studies on three industrial plants and its government is taking the CO2 leakage liabilities. Rotterdam and Antwerp are also moving forward with CCS projects.

Pöyry has deep commercial experience in CCS as well as regulation and policy making and as part of the UK CCS cost reduction task force has promoted the aim of reducing the cost of the technology and help the UK meet its climate targets.

The finance model is not a direct follow-on from Lord Oxburgh's benchmark report on CCS. However, it does assume a separate State-backed transport and storage company which takes CO2 liability.

This work found that the total cost of industrial CCS in Teesside is £58/tCO2 in total, including access to a transportation and storage network.

[edit] How can the Teesside project kick-start industrial CCS in the UK?

Teesside proposes to start CCS in the UKcost-effectively with the first phase capturing and storing 11 million tCO2 over 15 years. Once the network is proven, this would expand to capture and store 10m tCO2 per year as power stations and more industrial companies join the network.

The first phase would cost £110m to construct and £29m per year to operate, including a transport and storage fee.

The pilot could repay up to £31m per year to government in carbon saving income.

Implementing industrial CCS within the next couple of years brings enormous benefits to UKinfrastructure. All the modelled scenarios to achieve the UK's legally binding carbon targets require this technology. CCS has the unique ability to reduce carbon emissions by 90% at selected plants.

"CCS on industrial plants is going to be a critical part of the global effort to prevent serious climate change. Teesside is in the right place, at the right time, to get ahead of the curve." – Sir David King, UK's special representative for climate change

"The sustainability of the PET we buy is of paramount importance to us. Suppliers who account for their emissions in a credible way will present a fundamentally more attractive proposition in relation to their rivals." – Alison Rothnie, Britvic Plc

This article was originally published here on 18th Oct 2017 by ICE. It was written by Sarah Tennison, Tees Valley Combined Authority.